Sunday, May 17, 2015

Overrun

Overrun started off well enough, I had an idea for a cool movement system, and I wrote the code for that movement in a really short amount of time at a really early point in the week. As I kept with it though, there were a lot of issues that I would have had time to fix if I'd managed my time a bit better. (I'm still getting used to having a real 9-to-5 again.)

Still, though, Overrun ended up okay:

The biggest issue is with enemies. If they spawn in just the right place, they'll twist out of alignment with the level as they turn to face the core circle, making them impossible to hit. Other than that, there's just not enough fun to Overrun. Some of my ideas to improve that include making stationary, remote circles which heal the core when you move to them, or implementing a points system that rewards you for killing enemies farther away from your core.

When I posted Bolt, I mentioned that one sign that a game is good is that the screenshots look very exciting. In any still shot of Overrun you take, it's practically impossible to tell just what exactly is happening. In part that's just the nature of how you move, but it's also because I think the action in Overrun can be sold better, visually. At the very least, though, it makes for some interesting modern art when you zoom in really close:

Anyway, it's still an interesting movement system, and if I could figure out the problems with the enemy AI it would help me out in a lot of future games.

Menu music by: SonarTuning
Game music by: CynicMusic
all under this license